I turned over the manuscript to the designer at the end of the day Friday. She and I have already made all the decisions abut the interior design, so she was able to start working on the layout first thing Saturday.

She e-mailed me mid morning to ask about a possible editorial mistake. In the second chapter, one character’s age was listed as “41” instead of the age being written out as all the other ages are. She asked if she should change it, and I said, “Yes, please.”

I can’t tell you how many times I have read this book, and it’s been through copy editing, yet the mistake still slipped through.

You would think I would feel really discouraged about that, but I’m not. Instead, my instantaneous reaction was gratitude. I count myself blessed to be working with a designer who would notice something like that. Not all do; it’s not their job. But this one did, so once again, I feel reassured that my baby is in very good hands.

4 responses to “Publishing: Working with Good People”

Feedback is wonderful, no matter from where it comes. I once had a reader of my blog contact me through my site’s contact form to inform me of a grammatical error. Her reason was so that I wouldn’t be embarrassed for being called out in the comments. She even referred to herself as a lurker and felt she was stepping over the line and apologized.

People are truly helpful, especially these shy types. I absolutely made the change and thanked her.